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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very...........different, April 22, 2001
This review is from: Mahler (DVD)
This is a rather bizzare movie on the life of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Then again, perhaps it would be borderline impossible for anyone to conceive of a movie about Mahler which was not bizarre. The movie makes an attempt to reconstruct the psychology of an artistic genius, one who was so inspired by the works of Beethoven, Wagner, Goethe, Nietzsche & Novalis. The film takes place aboard a train; Mahler and his wife are both travelling on board. The trainride sees Mahler indulge in a number of flashbacks and nightmares, all of which provide the vehicle for Ken Russell to divulge the more salient episodes of Mahler's life. Among these are his childhood artistic inspirations, the rocky relationships he had with his wife & family and the unfortunate but infamous encounter he had with the emperor of Austria. As a biography of a composer, this one does not rank up there with "Amadeus," "Immortal Beloved" or Richard Burton's "Wagner." However, it does do a credible job of engaging some of the more memorable epochs of his life, as well as his incessant infatuation with death. There are also some intentional anachronisms, such as his "meeting" with Cosima Wagner. Far more important though, is the introspective look which the movie offers on the isolated existence of a tormented genius. The continual anguish of this friendly, misanthropic megalomaniac is felt throughout. Someone once asked Mahler, "How could a man as kind-hearted as you have written a symphony so full of suffering?" "It is," replied Mahler, "the sum of all the suffering I have been compelled to endure at the hands of life." Such is the theme of this movie. Such was the theme of Mahler's life. It is a theme sometimes gruesome, sometimes hauntingly beautiful, and always gripping. See this movie, and hear the theme for yourself.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mahler/Christ/Ken Russell, May 9, 2001
This review is from: Mahler (DVD)
Film auteur Ken Russell made at least six biographical movies about celebrated composers, three of which enjoyed commercial release in the United States: "The Music Lovers," about Tchaikovsky; "Mahler," about its titular subject; and "Lisztomania," really about Wagner as much as it was about Liszt. Unseen in commercial release in North America (and unseen by me) are studies of Frederick Delius, Sir Arnold Bax, and Bela Bartók. Known for his extravagance - and, let us be honest, his vulgarity - Russell nevertheless believes passionately in these projects and endows his composer-artists with an especially powerful aura. (At one point, in the late 1960s, Russell apparently tried to help in the promotion of Lyrita's release of symphonies by Bax, although his plan was eventually scuttled by Lyrita's management.) The Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and Mahler films are all studies in the link between neurosis and creativity and portray the artist not merely as a social outcast, unfit really for society, but as a martyr to his own talent, which inevitably consumes him. "Mahler" (1974), as fantastic as portions of it might be, maintains the closest marriage with reality. Robert Powell (famously Jesus in Zeffirelli's film of that name) as Mahler represents perfect casting. For one thing, he looks the part. British beauty Georgina Hale (where is she twenty-five years later?) is alternately innocent and whorish as Alma Schindler, who, twenty years younger, became Mahler's wife only to betray him, as Mahler perhaps betrayed her, too. There is enough neurosis in their story to go around. Russell gives us not so much a straight narrative as a series of vignettes in flashback from Mahler's point of view as he returns by train to Vienna for the last time in 1911, the year of his death. Using Bernard Haitink's recordings of the Mahler symphonies (with the Concertgebouw Orchestra), Russell illustrates the music in the visual fantasies or episodes that make up the film. Examples? To the apocalyptic "organ chord" from the First Movement of the Tenth Symphony, we see Mahler's lakeside hut at Maiernegg burst into flames; then a cocooned female figure gradually emerges from her chrysalis in a weird ballet. To the death-march on "Frère Jacques" from the First Symphony, with its interruptions by an oompah-ing klezmer band, we see Mahler watching his own funeral and interment helplessly, his coffin carried by black-uniformed SS men while Alma, in matching SS miniskirt and jackboots, does a lewd dance on the grave. In a crucifixion scene accompanied by bleeding chunks from Wagner's "Ring," Cosima Wagner, the Mistress of Bayreuth,gives him a pass for being circumcised, then compels him to eat pork, thus licensing him to conduct the most Teutonic of Teutonic music. (This follows the announcement of the composer's conversion to Catholicism - as I said, nothing is too vulgar for Russell.) For the "Veni, Creator Spiritus" from the Eighth Symphony, Russell gives us a cinematic suite of Gustave Doré engravings based on Dante's "Paradiso." And so it goes. At one point, a reporter claiming to be "Ernst Krenek" bursts into Mahler's Pullman compartment. (The real Ernst Krenek would have been about three years old at the time.) What holds the sequence together is the music in combination with Powell's remarkable performance. He even convinces when he undertakes the thankless job of conducting an unseen (and of course nonexistent) orchestra for the camera. (We all do it, but none of us wants to be photographed while doing it.) While room remains for as less surreal treatment of Mahler, Russell's, despite its eccentricity, is still a worthy attempt. Aficionados of Mahler will especially want to have it. I recommend it with the cautions implicit in what has gone before.
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25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The worst DVD transfer I ever saw..., February 13, 2000
This review is from: Mahler (DVD)
Mahler was a great Ken Russell film. It should have been presented correctly on DVD. Instead what we get is a washed out, blurry, scratched up mess. The sound is bad and the beauty of the cinematography is totally lost. This would be laughable if it weren't a shame. Honestly, the VHS version of this film blows the DVD away (huh?). Mr. Russell was a pioneer in his time and respected by people who enjoyed his mischievous touch. This film needs to be redone by someone who cares!
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